


A Light to the Blind

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Background Relationships, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 18:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16500263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Frank is a beacon, a bonfire.





	A Light to the Blind

Matt knows that most people look at Frank Castle and see a dark mark on the world. They see the pain and the war and wrath come down to bear on a wicked world. They see someone violent and cruel; The Punisher is an excellent name for him, because that’s what the world sees in him – a punishment.

To him, Frank is the rush of vaulting rooftop to rooftop. He is the thrill of the chase, the singing air cut by a sharply aimed fist. He is blood, rushing through the veins and splattered on the cement. Frank is the current of storm-thick air blowing in off the river. He is the adrenaline rushing through his system, the assured rhythmic beating of his heart. He is both the danger of dark alleys and the safety of a warm home. Frank is fear and relief all in one stroke.

A knife in the dark; Frank is like thunder, the promise of violence so thick in everything he is, every line of his posture, every step of his booted feet. Frank’s voice is gunpowder rough and commanding, a voice that drives into Matt’s consciousness and compels him – to obey, to deny.

“I stood there. I could have killed him – I _wanted_ to kill him –”

That Matt finds himself confessing to this cold, hard man does not surprise him. Frank exudes an air of authority Matt finds comforting, a gruff sort of affectionate distance he associates with the confessional.

“You couldn’t,” Frank says, not looking up from the gun he’s piecing back together. “You can’t. It’s not who you are. You’re –”

“A half measure.” Matt says, bitterly mocking. He wonders sometimes why he bothers, knows he’ll always return to this.

“A hero. Killing ain’t in it, not for you.”

Sometimes, Frank is patient.

Frank is a dream and a nightmare. Matt wakes some nights smelling the leather and gun oil, the coffee and the blood; he wakes up smelling Frank as sure as if the man were in the room. His heart beats so hard in those moments, but he never really remembers what the dreams were. Something beautiful and terrifying. Something that should scare him, but thrills him instead.

There are mornings when he wakes with a pressure between his eyes, the heat of a recently fired gun searing his forehead. His heart slams against his ribs as he feels his way out of bed, into the shower, scrubbing himself like he can rid himself of the phantom smell of his own blood sprayed across the silk sheets.

Frank is the graze of a knife, splitting his uniform and slicing though his skin; he is the needle and thread pulling him back together after. Frank is the tightening of the Kevlar as it catches the bullet, Frank is the finger firing the gun. He’s the dichotomy of tightness and comfort Matt associates with his suit, and just like the suit he is the symbol of something greater than a single man should be.

Matt knows Frank goes home every week to people who love him. People who maybe even deserve him. Frank won’t talk about them, not really, but he mentions a man sometimes; calls him ‘Micro’, says he helps him with tech. Micro is married; Frank talks about his wife in tones of a man in some kind of awe. Frank drives out to the suburbs and has dinner with Micro and his family and comes back to the city days later, relaxed and refocused. Whoever Micro is, he and his wife are good for Frank.

Matt has always coveted things he can’t have. Things he shouldn’t even want, sometimes. His skin crawls when Frank touches him, heat spreading that he can’t stop. Doesn’t want to stop. He thinks of Elektra and is suffused with shame, but it doesn’t stop him from that desire.

“You do what you need to do. You’re stronger ‘n me. You see a solution to shit other than a bullet to the head. Don’t fuckin’ wallow in that guilt bullshit you do.”

Sometimes Frank’s aim is too good.

People see Frank as a death sentence. A dark mark, a shadow, a boogieman stalking the most violent and fearsome of the scum that stalks the city streets. He’s the idea of a vigilante taken to its most natural extreme; a judge and executioner unafraid of the consequences of murdering the murderers, the traffickers, the drug lords.

Matt understands why people see Frank that way. Honestly, he sees all of that too. He sees the dark that Frank wraps himself in like insulation. He sees the hole Frank punches in the world around him, breaking a space for himself in a world that doesn’t want men like him to survive.

But at the same time, Matt looks at Frank; Matt hears that steady heartbeat and smells the blood that drips from those hands, he feels the tension in Frank, the pain and the control over it, Matt _sees_ Frank, and he is a burning brand against all that darkness. Frank burns white hot in a world of fiery reds and soupy, difficult grays. Frank is a beacon, a bonfire.

So he smiles faintly, a twist of his lips as he ducks his head, as if he has to avert his eyes. Frank doesn’t do flattery; he speaks in the blunt tones of a man who sees a simple truth.

Frank is _everything_ , Matt thinks, and that he chooses to share any part of himself with a creature like Matt makes him feel so _warm_. Frank is a special kind of brilliance, a self-confidence and willingness to do what most shy away from – what Matt can’t bring himself to do. Matt thinks, on his best days, he can ignore the light that Frank throws off; on his best days, he and Frank are on opposite sides of this, fighting each other as much as they fight criminals.

But on the worst days, the low days, Frank is the closest thing Matt has left to a friend. Frank is a special kind of contradiction, but he owns everything he does. He accepts himself, is honest about who he is and what he does, and that makes him shine so much brighter than anyone else.

“You got a real way with words, Frank,” Matt says. “Better watch who you let hear you talking that way. They might think you have emotions other than anger.”

Frank snorts, easy, like it doesn’t mean anything, and Matt feels the tightness in his chest wind just a little more.


End file.
